Beep

November 9, 2007

By April B., Toronto, ON, Canada

Parker. That monster lying on the patients bed without a heart beat. Without his lungs breathing for him, the oxygen that was needed for survival. He was there lifeless, battered looking. Far from what he did a few hours ago at the bar. He didn’t look like his friend, the one who drank a mimic of his scotch, their poison. He looked like a man who got beaten to the pulp, deserving every strike that was intended for him.

Jake quickly held back the sobs that racked through his body, his eyes trained over the him, many nurses and the code team shuffling through the room not yet reviving the human in question. He picked his body up from the floor. The floor that was used to walk on by many doctors, many patients and many families that needed help, needing curing. He didn’t care who was watching him at the moment, he didn’t care for the voices he heard calling out his name trying to stop him from moving.

Right.

Left.

Right.

Each step faster and faster as he ran the meters to the open door, hearing the once faint beep become louder and louder, the flat line on the monitor continuing its straight ongoing path. He pushed a body in light blue scrubs away from him, covering the figure in the bed. Jake’s breath ragged and uneven all the anger coming through his tired body although his heart was beating a mile a minute, adrenaline rushing through his veins that were popping from his skin. The green hued tubes that worked the blood seen from everybody in the room, staring at the former composed doctor they used to see performing miracle procedures at Mount Sinai. Now he was a huffing man who needed the pathetic excuse of a human being to start living once again so he could kill him slower and more excruciating, what he truly deserved.

“Paddles!” he yelled not looking at the eyes of the nurses and the interns who had run in. Interns he despised for their work they did around the hospital. Right now, he couldn’t even think of the nicknames he had given each one of them. He couldn’t even mentally say them in his head. They were just interns who were dead set on being on top, saving as much lives and scrubbing in on as much procedure possible. Now they could prove it and bring Parker back to life, help him revive the battered body. “I said paddles!” he screamed turning around while the equipment was brought in, in a matter of seconds.

“Charge to three hundred.” He ordered, rubbing the petroleum jelly onto the surface of the electric device before pressing it against his chest with such force he could almost hear one of his ribs crack through his reddened chest. Derek’s harsh breathing was the only sound in the room. His breath steamed into the crowded, as he fought to maintain his control. His control to stop himself from taking a scalpel and gorging it into his body, opening his chest to see the heart and see with his own eyes that it was beating.

He controlled himself.

“Clear!” the loud sound of electric volts passed through the body, no response found or heard on the monitor.

“Charge to three twenty five. Now!” he yelled while he saw more bodies move into the room, already crowded than ever.

“Dr. Wilson.” The stern voice of his competition, of his opponent running in his navy blue scrubs and white lab coat, his face not in it’s normal composed state. “Dr. Wilson, give me the paddles.” He insisted quietly making his way next to him, his hands out ready to take them. Jake’s hands shook, already wanting to shock him once more no matter who was in the room.

“No!” he spat, turning to the nurse. “Charge again!” he cried placing the flat surface on the chest of his former best friend. A stranger in his eyes who he knew nothing about. The nurses didn’t move from the shake of Michael’s head silently telling them not to go ahead with Wilson’s orders.

“Just give them to me, and I will take care of it.” Michael said gently wanting to speed things up with his patient flat lining in front of him. He had an obligation to tend to, keep him alive no matter what it took. Preston didn’t care what this Parker Samuel had done, who he was associated with or how significant or insignificant he was to Jake. “This is not your patient. Give them to me now Wilson.”

“No….no.” he murmured his hands still on the paddles pressed in Parker’s chest waiting for them to charge, for them to listen to his orders. “Ch…charge.” He sobbed out.

“Wilson.” Michael whispered quietly, his hand going to his back only to have it shoved away. He sighed. “Jake.” He said sternly. “Give me the damn paddles, I will take care of him.” He reassured.

“I don’t care if he is taken care of!” Jake snapped making the few individuals standing in the room wince at the loud words spoken by the doctor known as compassionate. “I need him alive. I need him alive!” he screamed pushing Michael away. “Now charge!” he yelled.

No one moved. No one did as he was told.

“Damn you.” He mumbled pushing past the bodies and charging it himself before getting back. “Clear!”

Parker’s body jerked. No heartbeat.

“Charge to three fifty!” he yelled, finally someone did help him. He was surprised none the less to have Chris, an intern, come and do what he was told.

“Charged to three fifty.” He replied with a nod.

“Clear!”

Nothing.

“Push one of epi and charge again to three fifty.” He ordered.

“Jake! Don’t do this…” Michael said from the background, forming a sweat. “His body won’t be able to take it.”

“Shut up!” Jake snapped not looking back from where he stood, perspiration already soaking the back of his blue shirt, smeared in some dried blood a few hours ago. “You just shut up. Charge again!”

“Charging to thee fifty.” Chris replied.

Jake pushed the paddles to his chest, feeling the vibrations of the electric shock going through Parker’s body. “Anything?” he asked looking up a the monitor himself.

“Stats are still the same, his body can’t go under go any more charges.” Chris said in defeat, shaking his head while the others watched, Micheal whispering to a nurse who ran out after. He was going to be in shit, he knew it but he didn’t care. It was instinct that continued on with his fury, with his need to be the one who revived him and send him to hell where he would live it than rather rest in it. He was not going to die and leave him and Maureen broken and filled with memories of such horrible details.

He would not do that. Not to her. Not to him.

He threw the paddles away to the floor and placed his right hand over his left, intertwining his fingers over one another. His large hands forming a sturdy and strong pad, while his elbows locked. They met Parker’s skin covered in the petroleum jelly that was brushed across his chest for the shocks brought into him. And then he started.

Pump.

Pump.

Pump. Pump. Pump.

Each compression pushing harder and harder through his chest breaking his ribs to reach his heart. The heart that needed to start beating or else he wouldn’t know what to do. It had to start.

Dismiss anything else, it had to.

“One one thousand…two one thousand…three one thousand…four one thousand….five one thousand…” He murmured with each pump, with each compression pushing down two and a half centimeters down the chest.

Chris had come up and pumped the air from the blue device helping with the airway while Jake worked on the heart. He was not a heat person, his interest in the brain and the nervous system, but at that moment he was all about the heart. All the valves and the arteries.

It was all about the heart.

He continued pumping. “You will not die.” He screamed, tears stinging his eyes as they fell on Parkers face. “You will not die, you hear me? I will not let you die and leave her like this. I will make you pay for what you did. I will make you live-“

“Wilson!” the loud looming voice of Chief Carlson came as he entered the room already knowing there was havoc from the many individuals in the room and the nurses standing not to far away. “Stop now.” He ordered.

“You are not going to die…” he murmured not hearing what his boss, the man who had the future in his hands. “Come on! Come on, don’t be a coward!” he cried.

“Jake! Just stop.”

The voices were faint. All he saw was Parker and the images of what he had done.

“You will not die. Don’t you dare run away from this, coward! You will not do this to her!” he screamed pumping, losing count. Each compression frantic bruising him more.

The flat lining, the mocking sound that signaled that his muscle still did not function. For those moment trying to save him he didn’t hear it, as if he had got used to the sound that meant death. He didn’t want to get used it. He wanted to hear the steady beats. He needed to hear them now.

He wouldn’t stop, even if he felt the Chief try and pull him away. He didn’t stop. He fought back and compressed harder and faster.

Pump.

I bleed it out.

Pump.

Bleed out.

Pump.

I bleed out.

Pump.

Don’t throw it away.

Pump.

Throw it away.

Pump.

Just to throw.

Pump. Pump. Pump. Pump.

Throw it away.

And he was weak, arms dragging him by the arms as his legs gave in pushed against the wall breathing ragged near the point of hyperventilation. He saw the Chief and Michael work on Parker now, doing what he had just done for the past few minutes, feeling like hours going by. His hands sore, everything and everywhere wore down while he watched ahead of him still in the room. No one tried to help him, and he was glad. He wanted them to make Parker live.

He had to.

There were great doctors in the room, working their best. He was sure of it. Until they stopped. Jake stopped his movement trying to breathe.

They had stopped.

“There’s nothing we can do.” Michael muttered not meeting his eyes.

Chief sighed. “Call it.”

“Time of death-“

“No!” Jake yelled. His body was tired, near the point where he couldn’t feel his legs, but his voice was still going strong. He was a lion who still had the capability to roar when needed. It was certainly needed. “You..you can’t. You need to keep going. Keep going!” he screamed trying to get on his feet, failing at first movement of his ligaments.

“Call it.” Chief sighed ignoring.

“Ple….please..” Jake begged sobs coming through once again.

Burke shook his head, pulling out his watch that was in his pocket. “Time of death is 2-…”

Don’t.

He smelt the faint scent of vanilla. A scent that he loved, that was used many years in the past. A scent that made him forget for a moment where he was. Maybe it was how it calmed him, made him feel at ease even if his life and life of others were more than crazy at the moment. The scent captivated him, striking him at that very second. In the patients room filled with people who had given up. In the room filled with medical instruments and disinfectants scrubbed everywhere where many instruments were sterilized and cleaned to the best degree. Why was the scent that could be compared as music to his ear be right in his area of scent.

Why?

Why here where nothing was going right?

And then he knew. Everyone knew weather they saw her or felt her presence. The tiny body was awake and standing up, her scratched up legs seen through the thin patients gown nearly falling off her tiny body. Her back bare, the gown not tied properly revealing the marks looking as if she had been whipped with leather tied with shards of sharp glass at the ends. Her hips were bruised with the hand prints of the man that tortured her to the extremes.

“Jake.” She cried, tears falling from her green eyes, rimmed a bright red. A small tear splashed to the ground. The true Alice in Wonderland crying in the small crowded room, drowning. She needed to be saved. “Jake.” She cried again. She was in a trance her step mechanical as she walked with each step stopping at the body neat the bed. Even when the two doctors where standing right against the side, she could still see who was there.

And she sobbed louder.

“Pl…please…Jake. Ja…Jake.” She cried, searching for him.

“Maur….” His voice was rasp, she didn’t hear him as she was frozen at the spot not seeing him in the corner, unable to barely move in his state.

“She’s not suppose to be here. We need someone to get her back to her room.” Carlson said in a saddened voice seeing the condition the young woman was in. “Someone get her back to her room. She is in no state to be walking.”

“Maureen…” Jake tried once again, his voice not meeting his need to be there. To help her. His heart broke wanting to hold her in his arms and whisper that everything was going to be okay. “Maur….” Only a hoarse whisper heard, nobody looking down at him.

“Jak….Jake. Jake.” She cried looking around frantically, every time her eyes would set on Parker, she would freeze and then snap.

Again and again.

“Maureen!” the loud voice of Aaron called as he walked through the door, running over to Meredith trying to scoop her fragile body in his arms. “Oh God!” he said seeing what Maureen had seen seconds prior to her full blown screams.

“She cannot be here. We need to get her back to her room.” Chief stated.

“We need to call him.” Micheal interrupted.

“Maur…” Jake called once again trying to stand up, his legs holding his weight for the moment before he fell against the wall, hitting his shoulder painfully on the ledge. He was not heard.

Everything was chaotic. He couldn’t tell who’s voice came from who, all the sound mixing into one when he just wanted to get his Maureen back to safety. But he was invisible. In his mind at that very moment, every body was nobody. Everyone just road blocks to his girlfriend who needed him. He had promised he would just be outside, but now he was here helpless in a corner. Jacob Wilson was put in the corner while he was the only one who could help.

The room was a traffic accident. Confusion and chaos.

“Get her back to her room!”

“I have to call him.”

“Maureen come here!”

“Jake!”

“Sir, what do we do now?”

“Follow my orders and restrain her!”

“Mar, well find him. Come here, you’ll be fine.”

“I am going to call him.”

“Holy, this is insane!”

“What is happening to my god damn surgical staff.”

“Maur….” His vice croaked through al the talk, all the banter. He could barely understand.

But he understood this.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

And everyone stopped. Everything was quiet except the sound of the heart monitor. The silent hymn of Meredith sobs as she was taken quickly back to her room in Aaron’s arms.

Chief’s mouth gaping open.

Michael stopping from calling time of death.

Interns and nurses just watching the rise and fall of Parker’s chest.

Jake finally had the strength to get up.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

The pathetic excuse of a human being just loved to create a world of downfall around him.

Bleeding out.

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